I want to Move it, Move it: exploring children’s active play through tangible and embodied interfaces

The aim of this project is to understand and develop a framework for designing technology-augmented ways to increase pre-schoolers’ engagement with active play. This project is focused on addressing the critical issue of declining physical activity in pre-schoolers through understanding and exploring innovative, interactive, active play experiences for children, with a view to increasing their physical activity over the long term. This project focusses on how Tangible and Embodied Interfaces (TEIs) – which naturally facilitate motor competence through manipulation, gesture and whole body action – offer new opportunities to promote children’s active play.

This project will be based on empirical research with children undertaking interactive experiences with TEIs in real contexts, in order to understand barriers to and facilitators of sustained engagement with these types of systems. We will design and develop solutions that address the issues and test those interventions in a longitudinal manner, and produce a framework for designers and developers to guide them in creating TEIs for active play.